Homo imitato

Edge.org has an article in which Mark Pagel (right) presents a fresh and intriguing view of human evolution. Like all scientific work, he also speculates, if not quite predicts, that humans have reached a point beyond which we are possibly going to get more stupid — thus the title Infinite Stupidity.

In a nutshell, Pagel argues that with the emergence of homo sapiens on this planet, a process of evolution through cultural selection of ideas has become the main driver of change, taking over from the antecedent evolution through natural selection of genes. He also argues that the former has many of the same characteristics as the latter.

More specifically, where genetic mutation is random, so, he posits, might mutation of ideas (or what we commonly call innovation). Just as genetic mutation is a relatively rare phenomenon, with replication being more common, so in cultural evolution, innovation is rare, but copying is common.

Genetic mutation is a highly risky event. Most of the time, it fails to make the organism adapt better to its environment or convey any benefit to its reproductive potential. Likewise, idea innovation is also a highly risky event. It entails much effort, and the better strategy for other individuals in a population would be to copy than to invest effort in creating anew.

Pagel then brings in the internet and its related phenomena such as social media. These technological changes further lubricate the spread of ideas (copying) and thus further reduce any advantage in innovating. He strikes a pessimistic note for the future as a result.

But on the whole, his main point is that humans are not the species we we often think of ourselves as: we are not directed innovators, creating “progress” through deliberative advancements. Any innovation we have come up with might largely be mere chance, and that the average individual is no innovator at all, but a copier.

* * * * *

What I find troubling with the above analysis is the tacit equation of copying behaviour with stupidity. Surely copying is not totally passive. People make choices as to what to imitate and which ideas to take on board. In many situations, one is presented with different new ways of doing or thinking, which may be mutually exclusive, in addition to the option of just sticking with the old. In making a choice, some intelligence must surely be operating. It may be faulty in that the application of intelligence or rationality, or whatever form it takes, occurs in a setting of incomplete information or of subconscious bias (something I will come back to in a minute), but the long-term record of our species suggests that on the whole, the choices that the 99 or 99.9 percent make and which drive the cultural evolution of which Pagel speaks, has been remarkably successful. Here, I use the term “successful” in an evolutionary sense, in terms of breeding numbers and adaptation to new environments.

It may very well be that 1:99 or 1:99.9 ratio between innovators and copiers is optimal — and naturally selected to be optimal. Too many innovators and too few copiers may mean a population that keeps on generating novelty with an ineffective mechanism for sifting through all that novelty to determine which ones benefit the species and which do not. As Pagel himself has argued, innovation may be more driven by randomness than design, and precisely because it is mostly random, one cannot know what innovations are “useful” or “good” unless they have been “field-tested”, so to speak, through the choices of the 99 percent. However, such a perspective would give due credit to the copiers, because it then becomes clear that they and their intelligence have a role to play.

In the same vein, one can take issue with Pagel’s pessimisim about the effects of the internet and social media. He argues that these tools make copying so much easier, people would prefer to copy than to innovate.

I do not know if we can definitively say the people innovate from necessity, which the above argument implies. The oddballs among us in the human species are odd for reasons that are, well, odd. They are the ones who ask searching questions about the most quotidian of observations — like why does an apple fall down and not fall up? They are the ones who enjoy probing some tiny corner of the universe — asking, for example, what bacteria thrives in the neighbourhood pond? — with no prospect of utilitarian return. They are the perpetual malcontents, that no matter how comfortable or rational the existing situation is, can see something wrong with it and itches to either speak out or fix it.

Very much like genetic mutation, cultural mutation does not come about to “serve” any purpose. But also like genetic mutation, cultural mutation may occur at a certain rate. There is then no reason to believe that making replication or copying more efficient has any effect on the naturally occurring rate of mutation.

I think the fact that technological and cultural change has accelerated in tandem with human population growth supports the above point.

On the other hand . . . .

In pointing to the internet as a scene-changer in humans’ cultural evolution to come, Pagel may be on to something. Even if, as I have posited above, the rate of cultural mutation (or innovation) remains the same per million population, and even if the total incidence of cultural mutation continues to accelerate as population grows and become better educated, the dynamics of selection and adoption (copying, if you will) may well change.

For this, I would again refer to analogies from natural selection of genetic mutation.

Imagine a species that lived across a number of valleys, each separated by mountains they do not easily cross. Each valley thus represents a sub-population, in which genetic mutation occurs from time to time. Some mutations are beneficial and soon spread to the rest of the sub-population after a few generations. But this change does not easily spread to other valleys because of the physical barriers. Instead, other valleys have different sets of local mutations to select from.

The result is a species with different subspecies, and thus with slightly different adaptations and specialisations. When a new environmental threat appears impacting all valleys, there is a better chance that one or more subspecies have the wherewithal to cope. The diversity within the species endows it with resilience.

What the internet has done to human cultural evolution is to bulldoze the mountains away. Innovations springing up will very quickly find themselves having to compete with innovations from everywhere, without having the luxury of time to prove themselves on their home ground. There is no protected valley for a reasonable number of imitators to take up the local innovations, and no time to further develop them with subsequent mutations upon mutations.

The tendency is thus towards homogenisation. A few innovations spread very quickly, but a much higher percentage of innovations never a get a chance to be adopted, tested and developed.

Again and again we’ve seen this in recent human history.

As transport and communications infrastructure improve and national education systems spread, local languages are being wiped out. The energy-intensive “modern” way of life is widely adopted, or at least aspired to, as local adaptations to climate are ignored. Ignored too is the global threat to energy scarcity and climate change.

Ditto with business. There is the common complaint that opening borders to free trade and free foreign investment is not the unvarnished virtue it claims to be. It has terrible effects on local businesses, local brands, skills, trades and employment.

Or take something we see all around it: The awful spread of American fast food into our cultures. Hamburgers and fried chicken succeeded in America as a result of certain distortions in the country’s agricultural policies. The heavy reliance on corn-fed beef fattened in feedlots (where the cattle, infected with E coli, stand hoof-deep amidst their excrement) and battery-farmed chickens is what produced the phenomenon. Today the fast food chains are steadily destroying local food traditions as they spread around the world.

Now, I’m no traditionalist — I do not automatically valorise traditional cuisines over imports — but a good case can be made that American fast food is a terrible import. It is terrible in its effects on health and nutrition, and on the welfare of animals. Its heavy reliance on meat, an energy-intensive food, over plant-based ingredients, is also damaging our planet’s ecosystem. These are the new environmental threats that are magnified by the spread of American fast food (and fast food habits, such as accompanying each meal with fries and soda). For example, instead of obesity affecting just a sub-population of humans in North America, Britain and Australia, it is beginning to affect many other “valleys”.

So why are people from around the world adopting this cultural meme?

This questions brings us back to the matter of the intelligence of the imitator. Here is proof, you might say, that we shouldn’t see imitators through rose-tinted lenses. They don’t always exercise intelligence in making their choices as to what innovations to adopt. Indeed it is a complicated matter. What may be rational within certain data sets (e.g. the hamburger restaurant has a clean toilet, reasonably priced food and within walking distance when healthier food is further away, so I choose the hamburger) may be disastrously irrational (you’ll get fat and suffer a heart attack at age 63) when other data sets come into consideration.

And then there’s the well-demonstrated bias towards adopting innovations of ideas, habits and technology that others in the social circle have adopted. The same trait — humans are social learners — that Mark Pagel speaks of to explain how we broke the mould of evolution by natural selection of genes to cultural evolution, is both curse and blessing. We also adopt irrational, unintelligent ideas, technology and habits simply because others around us have done so and we have a subconscious need to belong.

There is no better example than the fact that large numbers of people, despite all the evidence, resist the idea of evolution by natural selection in the first place.

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13 Responses to “Homo imitato”

“Evolution” in the natural realm is causal and determined. “Evolution” of ideas, if indeed the term is unmisleadingly used, is crucially distinct in that mind enters in, rendering the process a different card game. Is this the basis of your reservations about the thesis you discuss?

To be clear – this is the claim – “mind enters in, rendering the process a different card game”.

You have to give reasons why this renders the process non-causal and undetermined. One can even dispute your characterization of natural evolution as causal and determined, or even if you are confused about what “causal” and “determined” mean in the context of evolution.

It’s an interesting article. I don’t fully agree with the conclusion that we as a species are doomed to ‘plateu’, given what little background I’ve had from reading The Selfish Gene by Dawkins.

I agree that evolution up till now may have favored copiers to some degree. However, I think that if the situation arises that innovators are needed, there will be the evolutionary impetus to correct for that (assuming we survive that long). I also posit that as the sizes of social networks / societies grow, the potential upside from innovation actually increases (e.g. you have bigger market for you ideas). This does drive the impetus to innovate too.

Nevertheless, an interesting idea. The good thing about science is that no one has to believe it until it’s experimentally proven – no one is required to believe you and nothing stops you from coming up with ideas. Unlike some other ‘memes’ I know alluded to in your last para. LOL

Mark Pagel’s theory does bring plausible concept of how social learning gave humans that extra edge over other creatures and even our closest relatives, However, I do agree with YB that he paints a rather pessimistic outcome, based on his theory, that globalization has caused more people to become lazy at innovating. Rather it has sped up the rate of innovation as it allows innovators to share their ideas and saves everyone’s time. Time that can now be spent on improvements or versions rather than inventing the same wheel independently. There are real on-going examples of this one of which is the R&D-I-Y (http://www.rndiy.org/), you can watch a presentation about it here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhvfOlPYifY). Being social creatures we are, as YB mentioned we have the innate desire to belong and thus may succumb to our herd instinct and copy irrationally. This skill in social learning we have can be a powerful tool collectively in a society. Hopefully, with the improvements in science and technology combined with the accessibility of information and education we can make more informed choices and copy wisely.

I completely agree with you that copying is in no way unintelligent. Just look at the internet, just about every successful business is a copy of something else done better. Was Google the first search engine? No. Was Facebook the first social network? No.

But I don’t agree that that copying the fast food model is unintelligent. It is extremely intelligent when examined through the prism of capitalism which is of course our guiding light.

Tasty food affordable to the masses is a win-win for both consumers and peddlers. Capitalism does not ask ethical or health questions and rarely do diners. So the diabetes down the road and farming land taking over the Amazon are interesting facts which might steer some middle class liberals to salads but in the main, irrelevant.

The Big Mac meme is robust for obvious reasons. There is nothing irrational about it.

What I like about your analogy of the valley is how this applies to globalisation and the income gap. Once upon a time, each little valley had its own economic ecosystem with haves and have nots. But these were small places (towns, villages) so the disparity was limited. Wipe away all the small valleys and replace it with one big one, and not only do you have homogeneity of culture, you have a very massive room for the 1% to pull away from the rest of the population.

Some things to think about:
1. Copying as a democratic act. If it is interesting, useful, fun to you and you can do something about it, copy it. Innovation evolves, lives and dies by those acts of democracy.
2. Refinement as a form of copying. Improving the original disruptive innovation in steps.
3. Copying as an instrument of efficiency. The study of the history of science takes longer than the study of its state of the art.
4. We have all become a form of cyborg since the beginning of recorded history, whether we recognize it or not.

Singapore is a classic case of “Infinite Stupidity”. The majority of Singapore voters exhibit classic examples of mindlessness, stupidity & pure irrationality through ceaseless mind washing & propagated hogwash eugenics of “elite vs digits”. Despite overwhelming evidence that they are push out of job, education and housing opportunities, they continue to vote for the establishment. Good luck to you!
Ditto the Stockholm Syndrome, “Capture-bonding” is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.
Likewise, Singaporeans [Digits] have become emotionally attached to their Elite Masters despite being mistreated, abused and taken for granted. The GE2011 would have been a watershed election but alas, collective infinite stupidity took over except for Aljunied GRC & Hougang. Even Potong Pasir fell into this infinite stupidity & reverted back to the establishment. Pity!

“And so, we might even wonder if the people in our history and in our lives that we say are the great innovators really are more innovative, or are just lucky.”

They are both innovative and lucky. Luck or randomness may play a greater part in our lives than most people give it credit for. Wasn’t it a matter of luck that Einstein was born with the genes that he had? And that he was nurtured in the way he was? Not just Einstein, but each and every one of us is the way we are because of our genes and environment. And that is largely all luck.

Some would put success (however defined) to some kind of special qualities in those individuals, but what is the origin of those qualities? What makes X want to succeed, or be hardworking or curious, more than Y? There is no running away from luck.

From another perspective however, we can also say it was all causal. We only attribute to luck what appears to us to be random, but is actually not so. Every event has an antecedent cause, and so everything, including us, is really determined.

Either way, “we” cannot really claim credit for our successes or failures. Humans, like other species of llife, are merely organic machines.

Bulldozing the mountains away is known in plant genetics or agriculture as monoculture. The danger with monoculture is that a single disease can wipe out an entire plantation, hence the importance of rain forests and species diversity. Have we become a monoculture? Who knows. We shall find out in 200,000 years, perhaps a bit sooner if the pace of evolution has picked up.

Prof Pagel’s impressive academic credentials notwithstanding, I find it hard to share his pessimism on the future of human society. If we accept the analogy between gene propagation and the spread of cultural memes, then we must remember that 99.99% of genes have been successfully replicated (ie copied) for millions of years. The genes in our bodies are essentially the same as those in our ancestors who lived hundreds of millions of years ago. So there is nothing surprising if memes, too, are rapidly adopted, copied and propagated by a majority of the population. As with genes, change will come abruptly and rarely, as when a Steve Jobs comes along, which is the equivalent of a meme mutation.

Although Prof Pagel says innovation is extraordinarily hard, he does not, in my view, succeed in putting forward a convincing argument that the rate of meme mutation in the population as a whole has dropped from historical levels because of recent developments. In other words, even if the majority of us are “copiers” of memes and the pace of copying has picked up because of technology, so long as the odd mutation in ideas takes place (YB’s “oddballs”), there is hope. The internet may have speeded up the copying of memes but so too will it speed up the adoption of mutated ideas.

The danger, as I said previously, comes from loss of diversity and monoculture. This could well be in the realm of memes, as in genes. Perhaps we shall all end up like the dinosaurs, to be gawked at by future generations of school children, in a museum of homo extinctus.